


Morning Song

by wherehopelies



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: (kinda), Angst, F/F, Friends With Benefits, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 00:43:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16545521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wherehopelies/pseuds/wherehopelies
Summary: "Beca had always been living in the idea of her own future, but now she wanted to live in the present, wanted to grow up and put down roots and listen to Emily’s morning song every day as she drifted back to consciousness. But Emily was living in limbo, in a kind of transition between past and present and future. She was waiting - waiting for life to settle, waiting for ideas to catch up with reality.Emily was waiting for a boy."





	Morning Song

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you read the fic tags and know that this is angst and unrequited love. No happy ending on this one, but tbh I've written worse (cough bemily zombie au cough) (at least no one dies).
> 
> Based on Morning Song by The Lumineers.

In Beca’s idea of how life was supposed to play out, she never thought it’d be like this. She didn’t think she’d be the one left behind. It was always she who was doing the leaving - leaving the shithole town she grew up, leaving college for LA, leaving anybody and anything who stood in the way of her dreams.

Life did go that way - for awhile anyway.

Then one day she woke up and was 30 and she was next to someone in bed and she couldn’t remember how she got there.

But she liked it there, liked the arm slung over her middle, liked the warmth pressed into her back. She liked the happy sighing in her ear.

She liked turning over, seeing brown eyes blinking sleepily at her, the soft smile Emily would always give her when she saw Beca was awake.

The silent emotions of mornings with Emily felt like a song Beca didn’t know how to write.

She just knew she liked it.

//

They weren’t dating, exactly. It felt somehow both more and less serious than that. But maybe that was just Beca. She was tired of always leaving everything behind, and if she had to stay for something, for someone, she was sure it would be for Emily.

Beca had always been living in the idea of her own future, but now she wanted to live in the present, wanted to grow up and put down roots and listen to Emily’s morning song every day as she drifted back to consciousness.

But Emily was living in limbo, in a kind of transition between past and present and future. She was waiting - waiting for life to settle, waiting for ideas to catch up with reality.

Emily was waiting for a boy.

_We’re on a break_ , Emily had said with a shrug, seemingly unhurt by the idea that her boyfriend of three years wanted to take some time to work on his career without distraction. Beca could maybe get it. If any boy in the universe said they wanted to take a break and not mean anything else by that strange and ambiguous idea it was Benji.

Beca didn’t believe that whatever she had with Emily was just a way for Emily to pass the time. She didn’t think Emily’s mind worked in such a callous way. Emily just liked being close to people, wasn’t afraid in the way Beca was of feeling something for someone and having it not work out.

Emily was open to love of all kinds, even if that love existed somewhere between romantic and platonic.

Even if that love meant someone might get hurt.

Emily just didn’t think in these ways, and it was something Beca both loved and hated, but it was a fact she was aware of, and that’s why she thought she’d be okay.

She always knew Emily was waiting for someone else, so it wouldn’t hurt when she left. After all, Beca had been an expert at that once upon a time.

 But God, she was so wrong.

//

She’d always heard of people falling in love with the idea of someone, only to realize they weren’t in love with the actual person.

Beca never thought she’d avoid the idea and fall for the reality.

It’s just not as romantically angsty that way, and perhaps that’s why she doesn’t expect it.

But fall she does, and she doesn’t realize it until Emily’s standing in front of her, telling her she and Benji got back together.

That’s when Beca knows she’s always had everything wrong. Her idea of life, her idea of love, her idea of Emily…

Nothing ever plays out like you’d imagined it would.

//

In movies, this is the part where the protagonist doesn’t know what to say, where everything happens too fast and she just says whatever, then has to run after the love interest because that’s what the love interest really wanted her to do the whole time.

That’s why Beca thinks movies are boring and predictable.

Real life doesn’t really happen that way.

The moment after Emily tells her she and Benji got back together seems to last an eternity for Beca. All the things she could say, the things she could do, all these options present themselves in a hundred clear ways in front of her.

But maybe that’s because she always expected this to happen. She always knew Emily was waiting.

She just didn’t expect the hurt she’d feel about it.

The words come out of her mouth like she’d been rehearsing them these past few months, even though she didn’t remember ever actively thinking about them.

“That’s great, Em.”

And it’s not _great_ , but it’s _fine._ Beca’s fine.

What else is she gonna be?

She could tell Emily to stay, could tell Emily that taking a break is just a sorry excuse for something else, tell Emily how she _feels_.

But why?

Emily’s decision has already been made for months. When they were together, Emily was open to love, but she’d already been walking a certain path. Maybe Beca was a stop on it, but ultimately she knew where the road was leading and it was back to Benji.

Beca sees it all before her, laid out like an instruction manual to getting rejected.

Maybe life isn’t like the movies because movies fit people into boxes, but real people aren’t characters who you get to love and hate for reasons that make sense. People don’t get to have their actions on a checklist, something to move down and mark off if it fits with the story someone wants to tell.

Sometimes it’s so much more complicated than that.

Beca thinks that’s why she likes music better.

It makes sense without trying so hard.

//

If Beca were still in college, still in her early 20s, maybe she wouldn’t think this way.

Maybe she wouldn’t think so much at all.

Instead, she eats lunch and stares out of her office window, thinking about the way her life has gone. She watches the bubbles in her Coke drift to the top of her drink and feels her stomach sink. She thinks about Emily.

What’s she doing now? Is she at work, nannying for three children that she loves like her own? Is she with Benji? Is she being soft with someone else?

Yeah, if she were younger she might not think about this stuff at all. But she’s not so young anymore, not so full of self-righteousness.

It makes her hands shake, but she thinks of Emily and Benji, wondering if Emily feels the same with him as she did with Beca. Beca can see her if she closes her eyes, the way Emily’s smile can light up a dark room, the way her hair falls softly against her pillow.

The way she touches Beca with the ultimate care and tenderness.

Beca thinks about it and can’t shake it, can’t rid herself of the question.

Does Emily think of her at all when she’s with Benji? Does she make love to him the way she did with Beca? Is it the same? Is it different?

It must be, Beca knows, but she also knows that’s exactly what she and Emily were doing when they slept together, even if neither of them ever said it.

“What are you scared of, Beca?” Emily had asked her once in the darkness. Her fingers were still on Beca’s bare stomach, soft and comforting. Beca hadn’t wanted to say anything to ruin the moment, liked how Emily was kissing her hairline every so often.

“I dunno,” Beca had laughed. “Jellyfish.”

“Jellyfish?” Emily chuckled and Beca felt heat in the place Emily’s breath ghosted over her skin. “No, I mean for real.”

Beca had hesitated, because this was the part where they drifted past the casualness of not-dating and into some territory that held much more weight than friends with benefits.

But it was almost easy to let it happen those days. Beca had been too distracted by her own happiness to remember that she _knew_ they weren’t going anywhere. She’d let herself think she could forget.

“I guess… I’m scared of everyone knowing what I want and then not achieving it. The only thing worse than failing is everyone knowing you did.”

Emily had hummed, her nose dragging over Beca’s ear as she nodded. “Yeah, that would be scary.” She’d grabbed Beca’s hand under the covers. “But I don’t think you have anything to worry about. You’re amazing, Bec.”

Beca let her cheek press into Emily’s neck. “What are you scared of?”

“Also jellyfish.” Beca had snorted and Emily’s stomach shook with silent laughter. “No, okay. I think I’m scared of life passing me by.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just feel like I spend so much of my life waiting for something else to happen. I don’t want to one day open my eyes and realize everything I want has come and gone while I was waiting for something else.”

Beca paused, her mind trying to dissect that statement for meaning. Finally she nodded. “Yeah, I get that. You should go after what you want then. Don’t wait. Be bold.”

Emily let her fingers fall on Beca’s cheek, holding her closer. Beca’s heart fluttered weakly, like some kind of butterfly that knew it wasn’t ready to fly but desperately wanted to.

Emily fell asleep like that, with Beca’s nose against her throat and her arms around Beca, but Beca had stayed up for a long time after, thinking about what Emily had said.

Had Emily meant she wanted to stop waiting for Benji because Beca might come and go while she was busy waiting?

Beca never found out.

Emily and Benji got back together just a week later, and Beca was the one left waiting while everyone else passed her by.

//

Maybe, Beca thinks, Emily didn’t stay because Beca didn’t give her a reason to think she meant more than a short term fling.

You get what you give, and Beca never gave Emily a reason to stay, so Emily didn’t.

Still, Beca thinks back on that day Emily left so often she’s worried it’s morphed into something it’s not in her memory. She remembers Emily standing in front of her, Beca sitting on her hands so Emily couldn’t see them trembling with the panic that comes when you know something’s gonna hurt later, even if you can’t let it hurt you right then.

She’d let Emily think she was fine, but she wasn’t, and sometimes bitterness floods her mouth like deadly poison. But she made her choice to stay quiet, to let Emily live her life, to convince herself it wasn’t fair to show Emily she was hurting because she’d known all along how this was gonna end.

Sometimes her feelings build up in her, out of control like a car going 90 on the interstate without any brakes. She lets them take over her, reckless and free until she’s crying in her empty bathroom at midnight, too sober to blame it on anything other than a broken heart she can’t pretend away.

She’ll crawl into bed, smother herself in a pillow that no longer smells like Emily, and miss the song of emotion she’d wake up to every morning.

More than anything, she’ll hope that Emily’s happy.

Because if she isn’t then what is this all for?

Beca had told Emily she was afraid of failing and having everyone know it, but now she realizes that maybe it’s worse to fail and have _no one_ know it because now she doesn’t have anyone to tell her she has nothing to worry about.

Because now Emily’s gone, and Beca’s alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry about the unhappy unresolved ending. I was listening to the song and got some feelings and thought I might give this scenario a try. Beca is always the one leaving because she's the emo one and Emily's the sunshine one. Thought I'd try to play out the other way around and see how it went. Not my best, but I wanted to play in this sandbox for a bit.
> 
> Anyway as always, hmu @ emilyjunk.tumblr.com.


End file.
